Notification bundles for affinities between notification data

ABSTRACT

In some examples, a method includes receiving, first notification data from a first application and second notification data from a second application. The method may include generating, based at least in part on comparing the first notification data to the second notification data, an affinity score that indicates whether content from the first notification data has a relationship to at least a portion of content from the second notification data. The method may include, generating a bundle notification graphical element that includes at least a portion of the content from the first notification data and a graphical indicator that indicates the content from the first and second notification data are related. The method may include outputting a set of notification graphical elements comprising the bundle notification graphical element accompanied by the graphical indicator.

BACKGROUND

Computing devices can perform various functions, such as executingapplications stored at the computing device and outputting informationfor display (e.g., on a screen of the computing device). For instance,computing devices may execute a variety of applications, such as anemail client, travel assistant, messaging client, and the like. Toassist a user, a computing device may provide alerts for events, suchthe arrival of new email, an upcoming flight, or an incoming textmessage. The computing device may provide these alerts through a varietyof forms, such as haptic feedback, sound, and visual notifications.However, ever-increasing numbers of applications and informationreceived at the computing device may result in larger numbers of alerts.As the number of alerts increases, the user may exert more effort toevaluate the alerts and either dismiss alerts or act upon them. As thenumber of alerts and level of effort to address such alerts increases,the usefulness of the alerts may diminish.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example computing systemconfigured to identify relationships between different instances ofnotification data, and output a bundle notification graphical elementfor a bundle of related notifications, in accordance with techniques ofthis disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing device, inaccordance with one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing device thatoutputs graphical content for display at a remote device, in accordancewith one or more techniques of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 illustrates an expansion of a bundle notification graphicalelement into multiple singular bundle notification graphical elements,in accordance with techniques of this disclosure.

FIG. 5 illustrates a selection of a bundle notification graphicalelement and launch of a canonical application for notification datarepresented by the bundle notification graphical element, in accordancewith techniques of this disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating example operations of a computingdevice configured to identify relationships between different instancesof notification data, and output a bundle notification graphical elementfor a bundle of related notifications, in accordance with techniques ofthis disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In general, techniques of the present disclosure are directed todetecting a relationship between content of different notifications fromdifferent applications and outputting a bundle notification graphicalelement that represents the set of different, but related notifications.For instance, two different applications executing at a computing devicemay each generate a separate notification. Each of the two notificationsmay include duplicate content. For example, an email client and travelapplication may both generate separate notifications that include thesame flight details. As such, the content of one notification may beduplicative of the other. Rather than displaying separate notificationgraphical elements for each of the respective notifications, techniquesof the disclosure may compare the content of the notifications togenerate an affinity score that indicates whether a relationship existsbetween content of the notifications. If the affinity score satisfies athreshold, the computing device may output a bundle notificationgraphical element representing both of the notifications that haverelated content. In this way, the computing device may output a singlebundle notification graphical element representing multiplenotifications that are each related based on content included in therespective notifications. Since the bundle notification graphicalelement may consume less screen real estate than displaying two separatesingular notification graphical elements, techniques of the disclosuremay improve the overall use and allocation of screen real estate of adisplay device. In some instances, the techniques may also reduce theamount of effort needed by a user to evaluate and act upon notificationgraphical elements because fewer notification graphical elements may beoutput for display.

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example computing system1 configured to identify relationships between different instances ofnotification data, and output a bundle notification graphical elementfor a bundle of related notifications, in accordance with techniques ofthis disclosure. As shown in FIG. 1, network 132 represents any publicor private communication network, for instance, a cellular, Wi-Fi,and/or other type of network for transmitting data between computingdevices. Computing device 102 and information server system 134 may sendand receive data across network 132 using any suitable communicationtechniques. For example, computing device 102 may be operatively coupledto network 132 using network link 138A. Information server system 134may be operatively coupled to network 132 by network link 138B. Network132 may include network hubs, network switches, network routers, etc.,that are operatively inter-coupled thereby providing for the exchange ofinformation between computing device 102 and information server system134. In some examples, network links 138A and 138B may be Ethernet, ATMor other network connections. Such connections may be wireless and/orwired connections.

Information server system 134 represents any suitable remote computingsystem, such as one or more desktop computers, laptop computers,mainframes, servers, cloud computing systems, etc. capable of sendingand receiving information across network link 138B to network 132. Insome examples, information server system represents a host server for anotification system service. One or more computing devices, such ascomputing device 102, may access a notification service hosted byinformation server system 134 for transmitting and/or receivingnotification data between platforms, applications, and servicesexecuting at the one or more computing devices. In some examples,information server system 134 represents a cloud computing system thatprovides notification services through network 132 to one or morecomputing devices, such as computing device 102, that access thenotification services via access to the cloud provided by informationserver system 134.

In the example of FIG. 1, information server system 134 includesnotification host component 136. Notification host component 136 mayperform operations described using software, hardware, firmware, or amixture of hardware, software, and firmware residing in and/or executingat information server system 134. Information server system 134 mayexecute notification host component 136 with multiple processors ormultiple devices. Information server system 134 may execute notificationhost component 136 as a virtual machine executing on underlyinghardware. Notification host component 136 may execute as part of aframework or as a service of an operating system. For instance,notification host component 136 may be included as an operating systemcomponent that executes with elevated execution privileges of theoperating system. The elevated execution privileges may be greater thanuserspace privileges granted to applications not operating with elevatedexecution privileges. Notification host component 136 may execute as oneor more executable programs at an application layer of a computingplatform.

Notification host component 136 may perform functions for routingnotification data between one or more computing devices, such ascomputing device 102, over network 132. For example, notification hostcomponent 136 may perform functions for hosting a notification serviceand outputting notification data associated with platforms,applications, and/or services executing at computing device 102. Forexample, notification host component 136 may receive notification dataindicative of an event associated with an e-mail message account (e.g.,a new message received) associated with computing device 102 and sendthe notification data across network 132 to computing device 102.Computing device 102 may receive the notification data from notificationhost component 136 of information server system 134 via network link138B. Other functions that may be performed by a notification hostcomponent include, but are not limited to providing: weatherinformation, sports information, social networking information,financial or stock market information, emergency information, travelinformation, messaging information, and calendar information, to nameonly a few examples.

In FIG. 1, computing device 102 may be associated with a user thatinteracts with the computing device by providing various user inputsinto the computing device. Examples of computing device 102 may include,but are not limited to, portable or mobile devices such as mobile phones(including smart phones), laptop computers, tablet computers, wearablecomputing devices such as smart watches or computerized eyewear, smarttelevision platforms, cameras, personal digital assistants (PDAs), etc.In some examples, computing device 102 may include stationary computingdevices such as desktop computers, servers, mainframes, etc. Computingdevice 102, in some examples, may include presence-sensitive display104, UI module 106, notification module 108, affinity module 110, andapplication components 139. Other examples of computing device 102 thatimplement techniques of this disclosure may include additionalcomponents not shown in FIG. 1.

In some examples, computing device 102 may include a presence-sensitivedisplay 104. Presence-sensitive display 104 of computing device 102 mayfunction as an input device for computing device 102 and as an outputdevice. Presence-sensitive display 104 may be implemented using varioustechnologies. For instance, presence-sensitive display 104 may functionas an input device using a presence-sensitive input component, such as aresistive touchscreen, a surface acoustic wave touchscreen, a capacitivetouchscreen, a projective capacitance touchscreen, a pressure-sensitivescreen, an acoustic pulse recognition touchscreen, or anotherpresence-sensitive display technology. Presence-sensitive display 104may function as an output (e.g., display) device using any one or moredisplay components, such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), dot matrixdisplay, light emitting diode (LED) display, organic light-emittingdiode (OLED) display, e-ink, or similar monochrome or color displaycapable of outputting visible information to a user of computing device102.

Computing device 102 may include application modules 139, UI module 106,notification module 108, and affinity module 110. Modules 106, 108, 110,and 139 may perform operations described herein using software,hardware, firmware, or a mixture of both hardware, software, andfirmware residing in and executing on computing device 100 or at one ormore other remote computing devices. Computing device 102 may executemodules 106, 108, 110, and 139 with one or more processors. Computingdevice 102 may execute any of modules 106, 108, 110, and 139 as orwithin a virtual machine executing on underlying hardware. Modules 106,108, 110, and 139 may be implemented in various ways. For example, anyof modules 106, 108, 110, and 139 may be implemented as a downloadableor pre-installed application or “app.” In another example, any ofmodules 106, 108, 110, and 139 may be implemented as part of anoperating system of computing device 102.

Computing device 100 may also include UI module 106. UI module 106 ofcomputing device 102 may receive from presence-sensitive display 104,one or more indications of user input detected at presence-sensitivedisplay 104. Generally, each time presence-sensitive display 104receives an indication of user input detected at a particular locationof presence-sensitive display 104, UI module 106 may receive informationabout the user input from presence-sensitive display 104. UI module 106may assemble the information received from presence-sensitive display104 into a set of events, which may be time-ordered, that are indicativeof a gesture, such as a sequence of one or more touch events. Each touchevent in the sequence may include data or components that representsparameters (e.g., when, where, originating direction) characterizing apresence and/or movement of input at the presence-sensitive screen. Eachtouch event in the sequence may include a location componentcorresponding to a location of presence-sensitive display 104, a timecomponent related to when presence-sensitive display 104 detected userinput at the location, and/or an action component related to whether thetouch event corresponds to a lift up or a push down at the location.

UI module 106 may determine one or more characteristics of the userinput based on the sequence of touch events and include informationabout these one or more characteristics within each touch event in thesequence of touch events. For example, UI module 106 may determine astart location of the user input, an end location of the user input, adensity of a portion of the user input, a speed of a portion of the userinput, a direction of a portion of the user input, or a curvature of aportion of the user input, to name only a few examples. One or moretouch events in the sequence of touch events may include (in addition toa time, a location, and an action component as described above) acharacteristic component that includes information about one or morecharacteristics of the user input (e.g., a density, a speed, etc.). UImodule 106 may transmit, as output to other modules and/or components,the sequence of touch events including the components or parameterizeddata associated with each touch event. UI module 106 may act as anintermediary between various components and modules of computing device100 to process and send input detected by presence-sensitive display 104to other components and modules, and generate output from othercomponents and modules that is presented by presence-sensitive display104.

As shown in FIG. 1, computing device 102 includes one or moreapplication modules 139. Application modules 139 may includefunctionality to perform any variety of operations on computing device102. For instance, application modules 139 may include an emailapplication, text messaging application, instant messaging application,weather application, video conferencing application, social networkingapplication, stock market application, emergency alert application,sports application, office productivity application, multimedia player,etc. Although shown as operable by computing device 102, one or more ofapplication modules 139 may be operable by a remote computing devicethat is communicatively coupled to computing device 102. In suchexamples, an application module executing at a remote computing devicemay cause the remote computing device to send information using anysuitable form of data communication (e.g., wired or wireless network,short-range wireless communication such as Near Field Communication orBluetooth, etc.). In some examples, a remote computing device may be acomputing device that is separate from computing device 102. Forinstance, the remote computing device may be operatively coupled tocomputing device 102 by a network. Examples of a remote computing devicemay include, but are not limited to a server, smartphone, tabletcomputing device, smart watch, and desktop computer. In some examples, aremote computing device may not be an integrated component of computingdevice 102.

Computing device 102 may include notification module 108. Notificationmodule 108 may perform operations associated with receiving, generating,displaying, and/or otherwise handling a notification data. In someexamples, application modules 139 may send the notification data tonotification module 108 via one or more Application ProgrammingInterfaces (APIs) that are provided by notification module 108 andinvoked by application modules 139. In some examples, a notification maybe a message that is generated synchronously or asynchronously by anapplication and may include notification data. A computing device maydisplay a notification by outputting a notification graphical elementthat includes one or more portions of notification data, such as contentof the notification data. Notification data may be implemented, stored,and/or structured in variables, objects, and/or data structures. Inobject-oriented programming, an object may refer to a particularinstance of a class. In such examples, an object may include attributesand methods. The attributes and methods of an object that representsnotification data may correspond to and/or control the appearance andcontent of a notification graphical element. For instance, as furtherdescribed in this disclosure, a notification graphical element mayinclude a title and a body that are each output for display in agraphical user interface. The content of the title and the body may eachbe stored in attributes of an object that represents notification data,and the attributes may be updated using methods of the object.

In the example of FIG. 1, notification data is implemented as an objectthat includes or otherwise references content, such as but not limitedto: text, pictures, videos, audio, and metadata. For instance, an emailclient of application modules 139 may receive email content fromnotification host component 136, wherein the content includes a senderaddress, recipient address, subject line text, and email body text. Theemail content may include metadata, such the content of the emailmessage header. The email client may generate notification datacorresponding to the email by instantiating an object with variousattributes and methods. Upon instantiating the object, the email clientmay set one or more attributes of the object using one or more methodsof the object. For instance, the email client may set the titleattribute in the object representing the notification data to thesender's address. The email client may set other attributes of theobject representing the notification data, as well. The email client mayinvoke an API of notification module 108 to send the object representingthe notification data to notification module 108.

Notification module 108 may receive the object representing thenotification data from the email client. Upon receiving the object,notification module 108 may cause UI module 106 to output one or morealerts (e.g., an audible alert, a visual alert (e.g., notificationgraphical element), a vibration, etc.) to indicate the receipt of thenotification data by notification module 108. The alerts outputted by UImodule 106 may include content included in and/or referenced by theobject that represents the notification data. To output content ofnotification data for display, notification module 108 may generate anotification graphical element for display, which may be rendered in agraphical user interface. As an example, notification module 108 maygenerate singular notification graphical element 122 that is output fordisplay in graphical user interface 116. Notification module 108 mayselect content from an object representing notification data, such as animage, title, and body. Notification module 108 may set image 121A,title 121B, and body 121C of singular notification graphical element 122based on the content selected from the object representing thenotification data. Notification module 108 may send data representingnotification graphical element 122 to UI module 106, and UI module 106may cause presence-sensitive display 104 to output the notificationgraphical element for display.

Although the foregoing example was described with respect to an emailclient receiving email content remotely from information server 134, inother examples, an application may generate notification locally withoutreceiving content from a remote server. For instance, a clockapplication of application modules 139 may generate an alarmnotification based on an alarm set by the user. When clock applicationdetermines that the alarm condition is satisfied, the clock applicationmay instantiate an object representing notification data for the alarm,and send the object to notification module 108 in the same way asdescribed above with respect to the email notification. Notificationmodule 108 may receive such objects from one or more of applicationmodules 139 as the objects are generated and sent by application modules139. In some examples, notification module 108 may receive notificationdata from applications stored and/or executing at computing devicesother than computing device 102.

In the example of FIG. 1, application modules 139 may generaterespective instances of notification data, such as objects, that theapplication modules send to notification module 108. Notification module108 may, as described above, generate notification graphical elements126, 128, and 122. Notification graphical elements 126, 128, and 122 mayeach correspond to single, distinct instances of notification data. Asingular notification graphical element may correspond to a single,distinct instance of notification data generated by an applicationmodule. For instance, notification graphical element 126 may begenerated by a travel application of application modules 139,notification graphical element 128 may correspond to an email client ofapplication modules 139, and notification graphical element 122 maycorrespond to a calendar client of application modules 139. Althoughexamples of this disclosure are described with respect to a travelapplication and email client, any types of applications may be used inaccordance with techniques of the disclosure. A type of application mayindicate the origin and/or functions provided by an application. Forinstance, a first type of application (e.g., email client) may originatefrom a first source (e.g., vendor) and perform a first set of functions,while a second type of application (e.g., travel application) mayoriginate from a second source and perform a second set of functions,where the first and second sources and/or functions are different.Although examples of this disclosure are described with respect to twoapplications, any number of applications may be used in accordance withtechniques of the disclosure.

In some examples, notification module 108 may store notificationgraphical elements 126, 128, and 122 in a set of notification graphicalelements. Notification module 108 may implement the set of notificationgraphical elements as a map, list, array, or any other suitable datastructure. In some examples, notification module 108 may order thedisplay of notification graphical elements (e.g., in ascending ordescending order) based on one or more criteria, such as but not limitedto, priority of content associated with the notification graphicalelements, recency of content associated with the notification graphicalelements, or application frequency of use by a user for contentassociated with the notification graphical elements. In some examples,notification module 108 may order the display of notification graphicalelements based on the type of notification graphical element, such assingular or bundled. For instance, notification module 108 may order thedisplay of notification graphical elements such that bundlednotification graphical elements are ordered at the top (e.g., nearest tostatus bar 119) of a graphical user interface 118 with singularnotification graphical elements displayed below (or further from statusbar 119) the bundled notification graphical elements in a descendingmanner. Such a relationship is illustrated with bundled notificationgraphical element 120 being displayed above singular notificationgraphical element 122 in graphical user interface 116.

As shown in FIG. 1, application module 139 could separately include eachof notification graphical elements 126, 128, and 122 in graphical userinterface 118, where UI module 106 could cause presence-sensitivedisplay 104 to output graphical user interface 118. However, graphicaluser interface 118 may include duplicative content in each of singularnotification graphical elements 126 and 128. For instance, each ofsingular notification graphical elements 126 and 128 may correspond tothe same flight of the user to San Francisco, but the notification datafor notification graphical elements 126 and 128 may have originated fromseparate applications (e.g., a travel application and email client).

Rather than displaying multiple, singular notification graphicalelements 126 and 128 that each correspond to the same flight, techniquesof the disclosure may determine whether content of the notification datafor singular notification graphical element 126 has a relationship to atleast a portion of content of the notification data for singularnotification graphical elements 128 and 122. By determining that arelationship exists between the content of notification graphicalelements 126 and 128, techniques of the disclosure may output fordisplay, a single bundle notification graphical element that representsmultiple instances of notification data, rather two separate singularnotification graphical elements 128 and 122.

Determining that a relationship exists between the content ofnotification graphical elements 126 and 128 enables notification module108 to generate a bundle notification graphical element, which consumesless screen real estate at presence-sensitive display 104 thandisplaying two separate singular notification graphical elements 128 and122. As such, techniques of the disclosure may reduce the amount ofeffort needed by a user to evaluate and act upon notification graphicalelements. Accordingly, the techniques may allow more distinctnotification graphical elements to be output in a graphical userinterface by reducing the quantity of notification graphical elementsthat correspond to duplicate content.

In operation and as described above, notification module 108 may receivedifferent, instances of notification data from the travel applicationand email applications, respectively, of application modules 139.Notification module 108 may extract the content from each instance ofnotification data and send the content to affinity module 110. In otherexamples, notification module 108 may send instances of notificationdata to affinity module 110, and affinity module 110 may extract thecontent from each instance. In either case, affinity module 110 maystore the content of each instance of notification data. In the exampleof FIG. 1, affinity module 110 may store all or a portion of content ofeach instance of notification data in notification content data store117. Affinity module 110 may store content in a structured manner, forinstance, affinity module 110 may extract content corresponding to atitle from the notification data and store the extracted content as dataof a type ‘title’. Affinity module 110 may extract content correspondingto a body from the notification data and store the extracted content asdata of a type ‘body’. In this way, affinity module 110 may comparesimilar-type content from different instances of notification data.Although affinity module 110 is shown separately, some or all of thefunctionality of affinity module 110 may be included within notificationmodule 108.

Affinity module 110 may compare content of the notification data for thetravel application to the content of the notification data for the emailclient. Based on the comparison, affinity module 110 may generate anaffinity score that indicates whether content of the first notificationdata has a relationship to at least a portion of content of the secondnotification data. In some examples, an affinity score may be a Booleanvalue, integer value, non-integer value, or enumerated value to nameonly a few examples. Although some examples of this disclosure describeaffinity module 110 generating an affinity score with one or moreJaccard coefficients, any number of techniques may be used, such asEuclidean distance, or any other measurement that indicates a degree ofsimilarity between two sets of words.

To perform the comparison in FIG. 1, affinity module 110 may implement ashingling technique to generate an affinity score. In the shinglingtechnique, affinity module 110 may select the content for notificationdata corresponding to the travel application, which may include textrepresenting the title and body of the notification data. Affinitymodule 110 may extract a set of n-grams from the text to generate a setof n-grams, where n is greater than 0. An n-gram itself may be asequence of n discrete character strings, where each discrete characterstring may follow one another in sequence. The n-gram may include eachi-th word in a sequence of words, where i is greater than 1. Forinstance, affinity module 110 may extract, from text representing a bodyin notification data for the travel application, the following set ofexample bi-grams: “your flight”, “flight to”, “to San”, “San Francisco”,“Francisco departs”, “departs at”, “at 12:45 pm”, and “12:45 pm today.”The text representing a body in notification data for the travelapplication may include the sentence “Your flight to San Franciscodeparts at 12:45 pm today . . . ” Affinity module 110 may generateseparate sets of n-grams for different portions of notification data.For instance, affinity module 110 may generate a separate set of n-gramsfor content in a title and a separate set of n-grams for content in abody. In other examples, may generate a set of n-grams including contentfrom different portions of notification data.

To perform the comparison to generate an affinity score, affinity module110 may also extract, from text representing a body in notification datafor the email client, the following set of example bi-grams:“information for”, “for your”, “your flight”, “flight to”, “to San”, and“San Francisco”. The text representing a body in notification data forthe travel application may include the sentence “Information for yourflight to San Francisco . . . ” Affinity module 110 may generate n-gramsfor content included in the titles of notification data received fromthe travel application and email client, respectively. Using theshingling technique, affinity module 110 may generate an affinity scorethat represents a Jaccard coefficient. The Jaccard coefficient may beequal to a size of the set intersection divided by a size of union, ormore formally:

${J\left( {A,B} \right)} = \frac{{A\bigcap B}}{{A\bigcup B}}$where A is the set of n-grams from content of a first instance ofnotification data, and where B is the set of n-grams from content of asecond instance of notification data.

To calculate the Jaccard coefficient, affinity module 110 may determinea size of the union, |A∪B|, that combines the set of n-grams fromnotification data for the travel application with the set of n-gramsfrom notification data for the email client. The size may be a countdetermined by affinity module 110 that represents the sum of n-gramsfrom notification data for the travel application and the set of n-gramsfrom notification data for the email client. For instance, if the countof n-grams from the notification data for the travel application is 8and the count of n-grams from the notification data for the emailapplication is 6, the size of the union is 14, if there are 14 distinctn-grams. Affinity module 110 may also determine a size of theinteraction |A∩B|, which represents a count of the n-grams that areincluded in both of sets A and B. Affinity module 110 may generate theaffinity score between two instances of notification data as a Jaccardcoefficient in the example of FIG. 1, by dividing the size of theinteraction |A∩B| by the size of the union|A∪B|. For instance, affinitymodule 110 may determine that the affinity score, generated based oncomparing the notification data from the travel application and emailclient, is 4/14 or 0.286 because 4 n-grams are included in the union of14 total n-grams.

As further described in FIG. 2, affinity module 110 may generate theaffinity score based one or more other scores. For instance, affinitymodule 110 may generate the affinity score based on weighted Jaccardcoefficients that correspond respectively to n-grams for the titles oftwo instances of notification data and n-grams for the bodies of the twoinstances of notification data. The title Jaccard coefficient may beweighted differently than the body Jaccard coefficient.

Affinity module 110 may compare the affinity score to a threshold. Insome examples, the threshold may be set by a user, hard-coded, ordynamically set based on one or more criteria. Affinity module 110 maydetermine, based on the comparison, whether the affinity score satisfiesa threshold. In some examples, an affinity score greater than or equalto the threshold satisfies the threshold. In some examples, an affinityscore less than or equal to the threshold satisfies the threshold. Insome examples, an affinity score that matches the truth of the thresholdsatisfies the threshold. In some examples, an affinity score thatmatches an enumerated value of the threshold satisfies the threshold.

In the example of FIG. 1, affinity module 110 determines that theaffinity score (e.g., Jaccard coefficient) satisfies a threshold. Inresponse to determining that the affinity score satisfies the threshold,affinity module 110 sends an indication to notification module 108 thatthe affinity score satisfies the threshold. In some examples, theindication may be a Boolean value indicating that a relationship exists(e.g., true) between two instances of notification data. In someexamples, the indication may be the affinity score itself that wasgenerated by affinity module 110, or the indication may be any othersuitable data to indicate that a relationship exists between twoinstances of notification data.

Based on the indication received from affinity module 110, notificationmodule 108 generates a bundle notification graphical element 120 thatincludes at least a portion of the content from the notification datafor the travel application. Bundle notification graphical element 120 isfurther accompanied by a graphical indicator 124 that indicates thecontent of the notification data for the travel application is relatedto at least the portion of the content from the notification data forthe email client. In some examples, rather than generating separate,singular notification graphical elements 126 and 128, affinity module110 generates the bundle notification graphical element 120 withoutgenerating separate singular notification graphical elements 126 and128.

In the example of FIG. 1, graphical indicator 124 accompanies bundlenotification graphical element 120 to indicate that a relationshipexists between respective, instances of notification data from thetravel application and email client. In some examples, notificationmodule 108 causes a graphical indicator that indicates a relationshipbetween two instances of notification data to accompany a bundlenotification graphical element by including the graphical indicatorwithin the boundary of the bundle notification graphical element, suchas shown in FIG. 1 with graphical indicator 124 included within theboundary of bundle notification graphical element 120. In some examples,notification module 108 causes a graphical indicator that indicates arelationship between two instances of notification data to accompany abundle notification graphical element by displaying a graphicalindicator within a threshold distance from the bundle notificationgraphical element, such as illustrated in FIG. 4. In some examples, thethreshold distance may be a threshold number of pixels. The thresholddistance may be set by a user, hard-coded, or dynamically set based onone or more criteria.

Although graphical indicator 124 is illustrated as an additional imagethat is included within the boundary of bundle notification graphicalelement 120, notification module 108 may output a graphical indicatorwithout adding an additional image to graphical user interface 116. Forinstance, notification module 108 may cause a graphical indicator thatindicates a relationship between two instances of notification data toaccompany a bundle notification graphical element by applying, as thegraphical indicator, a visual effect (e.g., color, size, orientation,shape, animation, to name only a few examples) to the bundlenotification graphical element, such that the bundle notificationgraphical element is visually distinguishable in a graphical userinterface from other types of notification graphical elements, such as asingular notification graphical element.

In the example of FIG. 1, notification module 108 may send datarepresenting bundle notification graphical element 120 accompanied bygraphical indicator 124 to UI module 106. Notification module 108 mayalso send data representing singular notification graphical element 122to UI module 106. In some examples, notification module 108 may send thedata for elements 120 and 122 as a set. In any case, UI module 106 maycause presence-sensitive display 104 to output the set of notificationsincluding bundle notification graphical element 120 accompanied by thegraphical indicator 124 in graphical user interface 116. UI module 106may cause presence-sensitive display 104 to output singular notificationgraphical element 122, which represents a third, single instance ofnotification data received from the calendar client. As shown in FIG. 1,graphical user interface 116 includes both of graphical elements 120 and122, with graphical element 120 accompanied by graphical indicator 124that indicates a relationship between instances of notification datafrom the travel application and email client.

As shown in FIG. 1, in some examples, each notification graphicalelement (e.g., 120 and 122) of the set of notification graphicalelements is substantially the same size. In some examples, each of theset of notification graphical elements is substantially the same size ifa variation in the size of each notification graphical element relativeto other notification graphical elements is less than 5%. In someexamples, each of the set of notification graphical elements issubstantially the same size if a variation in the size of eachnotification graphical element relative to other notification graphicalelements is within a range of 0-10%. As shown in FIG. 1, in someexamples, each notification graphical element (e.g., 120 and 122) of theset of notification graphical elements is arranged in a uniformalignment along at least one of a vertical or horizontal axis ofgraphical user interface 116. For instance, notification graphicalelements are arranged in a uniform alignment along a y-axis (e.g.,longer edge of graphical user interface 116) in a columnar arrangement.In some examples, each of notification graphical elements (e.g., 120 and122) are not overlapping, such as shown in FIG. 1.

By outputting a single, bundle notification graphical element 120 thatrepresents two instances of notification data having related content,techniques of the disclosure may reduce or eliminate the display ofduplicate information from different instances of notification data. Asdescribed with respect to FIG. 2, techniques of this disclosure maybundle notification data based at least in part on the sender of contentfor a notification (e.g., bundling email, text message, and social medianotification data from the same sender) or a common topic associatedwith content included in multiple instances of notification data (e.g.,bundling notification data for the World Cup or soccer). As furtherdescribed with respect to FIG. 4, the user may provide user input tointeract with bundle notification graphical element 120, such asexpanding bundle notification graphical element 120 to expose different,singular notification graphical elements for each individual instance ofnotification data that are related to one another. As further describedwith respect to FIG. 5, the user may provide user input to interact withbundle notification graphical element 120, such as launching (e.g.,opening) a canonical application, which generated one of the multipleinstances of notification data.

In some examples, if computing device 102 is a wearable computingdevice, such as a smart watch, computing device 102 may act as acompanion device to an external computing device (not shown), such as asmart phone. In this example, the external computing device maycommunicate with computing device 102 to send notification data tocomputing device 102. For example, in response to receiving a textmessage, the external computing device may communicate a notificationdata associated with the text message to computing device 102 to causepresence-sensitive display 104 to output one or more graphical elementsassociated with the notification data.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing device 210,in accordance with one or more aspects of the present disclosure. FIG. 2illustrates only one particular example of computing device 202 (as alsoillustrated at computing device 102 in FIG. 1). Many other examples ofcomputing device 202 may be used in other instances and may include asubset of the components included in example computing device 202 or mayinclude additional components not shown example computing device 202 inFIG. 2.

As shown in the example of FIG. 2, computing device 202 includes one ormore processors 240, one or more input components 242, one or morecommunication units 244, one or more output components 246, one or morestorage devices 248, and presence-sensitive display 212. Storage devices248 of computing device 202 also include UI module 206, notificationmodule 208, affinity module, 210, application modules 239, and operatingsystem 252. Communication channels 250 may interconnect each of thecomponents 240, 212, 213, 214, 244, 246, 242, 248, 252, 208, 210, 206,239 for inter-component communications (physically, communicatively,and/or operatively). In some examples, communication channels 250 mayinclude a system bus, a network connection, one or more inter-processcommunication data structures, or any other components for communicatingdata between hardware and/or software.

One or more processors 240 may implement functionality and/or executeinstructions within computing device 202. For example, processors 240 oncomputing device 202 may receive and execute instructions stored bystorage devices 248 that provide the functionality of operating system252, notification module 208, affinity module 210, UI module 206, andapplication modules 239. These instructions executed by processors 240may cause computing device 202 to store and/or modify information,within storage devices 248 during program execution. Processors 240 mayexecute instructions of operating system 252, notification module 208,affinity module 210, UI module 206, and application modules 239 toperform one or more operations. That is, operating system 252,notification module 208, affinity module 210, UI module 206, andapplication modules 239 may be operable by processors 240 to performvarious functions described in this disclosure.

One or more input components 242 of computing device 202 may receiveinput. Examples of input are tactile, audio, kinetic, and optical input,to name only a few examples. Input components 242 of computing device202, in one example, include a mouse, keyboard, voice responsive system,video camera, buttons, control pad, microphone or any other type ofdevice for detecting input from a human or machine. In some examples,input component 242 may be a presence-sensitive input component, whichmay include a presence-sensitive screen, touch-sensitive screen, etc.

One or more output components 246 of computing device 202 may generateoutput. Examples of output are tactile, audio, and video output. Outputcomponents 246 of computing device 202, in some examples, include apresence-sensitive screen, sound card, video graphics adapter card,speaker, cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor, liquid crystal display (LCD),or any other type of device for generating output to a human or machine.Output components may include display components such as cathode raytube (CRT) monitor, liquid crystal display (LCD), Light-Emitting Diode(LED) or any other type of device for generating tactile, audio, and/orvisual output.

In some examples, presence-sensitive display 204 of computing device 202may include functionality of input component 242 and/or outputcomponents 246. In the example of FIG. 2, presence-sensitive display 204may include a presence-sensitive input component 215, such as apresence-sensitive screen or touch-sensitive screen. In some examples,presence-sensitive input component 215 may detect an object at and/ornear the presence-sensitive input component. As one example range,presence-sensitive input component 215 may detect an object, such as afinger or stylus that is within two inches or less of presence-sensitiveinput component 215. Presence-sensitive input component 215 maydetermine a location (e.g., an (x,y) coordinate) of thepresence-sensitive input component at which the object was detected. Inanother example range, presence-sensitive input component 215 may detectan object two inches or less from presence-sensitive input component 215and other ranges are also possible. Presence-sensitive input component215 may determine the location of presence-sensitive input component 215selected by a user's finger using capacitive, inductive, and/or opticalrecognition techniques.

In some examples, presence-sensitive display 204 may also provide outputto a user using tactile, audio, or video stimuli as described withrespect to output component 246. For instance, presence-sensitivedisplay 204 may include display component 213 that presents a graphicaluser interface. Display component 213 may be any type of outputcomponent that provides visual output, such as described with respect tooutput components 246. While illustrated as an integrated component ofcomputing device 202, presence-sensitive display 204 may, in someexamples, be an external component that shares a data path with othercomponents of computing device 202 for transmitting and/or receivinginput and output. For instance, presence-sensitive display 204 may be abuilt-in component of computing device 202 located within and physicallyconnected to the external packaging of computing device 202 (e.g., ascreen on a mobile phone). In another example, presence-sensitivedisplay 204 may be an external component of computing device 202 locatedoutside and physically separated from the packaging of computing device202 (e.g., a monitor, a projector, etc. that shares a wired and/orwireless data path with a tablet computer). In some examples,presence-sensitive display 204, when located outside of and physicallyseparated from the packaging of computing device 202, may be implementedby two separate components: a presence-sensitive input component 215 forreceiving input and a display component 213 for providing output.

One or more communication units 244 of computing device 202 maycommunicate with external devices by transmitting and/or receiving data.For example, computing device 202 may use communication units 244 totransmit and/or receive radio signals on a radio network such as acellular radio network. In some examples, communication units 244 maytransmit and/or receive satellite signals on a satellite network such asa Global Positioning System (GPS) network. Examples of communicationunits 244 include a network interface card (e.g. such as an Ethernetcard), an optical transceiver, a radio frequency transceiver, a GPSreceiver, or any other type of device that can send and/or receiveinformation. Other examples of communication units 244 may includeBluetooth®, GPS, 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi® radios found in mobile devices aswell as Universal Serial Bus (USB) controllers and the like.

One or more storage devices 248 within computing device 202 may storeinformation for processing during operation of computing device 202. Insome examples, storage device 248 is a temporary memory, meaning that aprimary purpose of storage device 248 is not long-term storage. Storagedevices 248 on computing device 202 may configured for short-termstorage of information as volatile memory and therefore not retainstored contents if deactivated. Examples of volatile memories includerandom access memories (RAM), dynamic random access memories (DRAM),static random access memories (SRAM), and other forms of volatilememories known in the art.

Storage devices 248, in some examples, also include one or morecomputer-readable storage media. Storage devices 248 may be configuredto store larger amounts of information than volatile memory. Storagedevices 248 may further be configured for long-term storage ofinformation as non-volatile memory space and retain information afteractivate/off cycles. Examples of non-volatile memories include magnetichard discs, optical discs, floppy discs, flash memories, or forms ofelectrically programmable memories (EPROM) or electrically erasable andprogrammable (EEPROM) memories. Storage devices 248 may store programinstructions and/or data associated with operating system 252,notification module 208, affinity module 210, UI module 206, andapplication modules 239.

As shown in FIG. 2, computing device 202 may include a power source 258.In some examples, power source 258 may be a battery. Power source 258may provide power to one or more components of computing device 202.Examples of power source 258 may include, but are not necessarilylimited to, batteries having zinc-carbon, lead-acid, nickel cadmium(NiCd), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), lithium ion (Li-ion), and/orlithium ion polymer (Li-ion polymer) chemistries. In some examples,power source 258 may have a limited capacity (e.g., 1000-3000 mAh).

In accordance with techniques of the disclosure, application modules 239may generate notification data that is sent to notification module 208.In some examples, content for the notification data may be received fromcommunication units 244 or may be generated by application modules 239without receiving content from communication units 244. In any eventnotification module 208 may receive first notification data from a firstapplication and second notification data from a second application. Asdescribed in FIG. 1, notification module 208 may extract the contentfrom each instance of notification data and send the content to affinitymodule 210. In some examples, notification module 208 may store contentfrom an instance of notification data in notification content data store217.

Affinity module 210 may compare content of the notification data for thefirst application to the content of the notification data for the secondclient. Based on the comparison, affinity module 210 may generate anaffinity score that indicates whether content of the first notificationdata has a relationship to at least a portion of content of the secondnotification data. For instance, affinity module 210 may generate one ormore Jaccard coefficients as described in FIG. 1. Affinity module 210may determine that the affinity score satisfies a threshold and notifynotification module 208. Notification module 208 may generate a bundlenotification graphical element that includes at least a portion of thecontent from the first notification data. The bundle notificationgraphical element is also accompanied by a graphical indicator thatindicates the content from the first notification data is related to atleast the portion of the content from the second notification data.Notification module 208 may send data to UI module 206 that causesdisplay component 213 to output, for display, a set of notificationscomprising the bundle notification graphical element accompanied by thegraphical indicator, and the set of notifications comprising at leastone other singular notification graphical element that represents athird, single instance of notification data.

In some examples, as described in FIG. 1, affinity module 210 maygenerate an affinity score based on weighted Jaccard coefficients thatcorrespond respectively to n-grams for the titles of multiple instancesof notification data and n-grams for the bodies of the multipleinstances of notification data. The title Jaccard coefficient may beweighted differently than the body Jaccard coefficient. For instance,affinity module 210 may store one or more weights (e.g., integer valueor non-integer value), which may be set by a user, hard-coded, ordynamically set based on one or more criteria. As an example, affinitymodule 210 may store a first weight that affinity module 210 applies toa Jaccard coefficient based on n-grams for the titles of multipleinstances of notification data. Affinity module 210 may store a secondweight that affinity module 210 applies to a Jaccard coefficient basedon n-grams for the bodies of multiple instances of notification data.The first weight may be different than the second weight. For instancethe first weight may be greater than the second weight or less than thesecond weight. Affinity modules 210 may generate a weighted affinityscore that is the weighted sum of such Jaccard coefficients. Forinstance, a weighted sum of such Jaccard coefficients may be representedas follows, where J_(title) is the Jaccard coefficient for the title,w_(titl) is the weight for the title, J_(body) is the Jaccardcoefficient for the title, and W_(body) is the weight for the body:AffinityScore=(J _(title) ·w _(title))+(J _(body) ·w _(body))If the overall score between two or more notifications satisfies athreshold, affinity module 210 determines that the two notifications areduplicates and merges them into the same bundle.

Although weights for the body and title are shown, any number of weightsmay be applied to any number of coefficients or other values thatindicate a degree of similarity between content of multiplenotifications. For instance, affinity module 210 may store or access adictionary of words from a written language. Each word in the dictionarymay have a corresponding frequency value associated with the word. Thefrequency value may include the likelihood of the word and/or thefrequency with which the word occurred in a corpus of words that wasused to generated the dictionary. Affinity module 210 may apply higherweights to less common or frequently used words that appear in multipleinstances of notification data. For instance, the word “the” may have ahigher frequency value than “Singapore” and therefore the presence of“Singapore” in content of multiple notifications may indicate a strongerrelationship between the multiple notifications than the word “the”. Assuch, affinity module 210 may apply a higher weight, which representsthe lower frequency of the word “Singapore”, to a Jaccard coefficientthan a lower weight for the word “the”. As with other examples describedin this disclosure, affinity module 210 may compare the affinity scorebased on the weighted Jaccard coefficient to a threshold. In someexamples, affinity module 210 may learn the weights for different wordsusing machine learning. In some examples, coefficients for the title andbody, respectively, may be combined using a machined learned model.

In some examples, affinity module 210 may generate an affinity scorethat indicates whether content, such as contact or sender, of a firstinstance of notification data has a relationship to a contact or senderof a second instance of notification data. In this way, affinity module210 may cause notification module 208 to group notifications from thesame contact or sender together, such as by outputting for display abundle notification graphical element that represents multiplenotifications from the same contact or sender.

To identify multiple instances of notification data that are related bya common contact or sender, affinity module 210 may query contactinformation data store 223. Contact information data store 223 may be anaddress book, contact store or any other repository of contactinformation. Contact information data store 223 may include contactinformation such as, but is no limited to: name, phone numbers, emailaddresses, social media identifiers, messaging identifiers, and thelike. In some examples, all or a portion of contact information datastore 223 may be stored at a remote computing device that is accessibleto computing device 202. A user of computing device 202 may storecontact information for other individuals in contact information datastore. In some examples, computing device 202 and/or one or more othercomputing devices may automatically populate contact information datastore 223 with contact information by extracting the information fromvarious sources, such as emails, phone records, social media, contextmessages, directories, and any other source of contact information.

To identify multiple instances of notification data that are related bya common contact or sender, affinity module 210 may compare content frommultiple instances of notification data. In some examples, thecomparison may be between the instances of notification data and/orbetween instances of notification data and contact information incontact information data store 223. The content may be, but not limitedto, the title of each instance of notification data.

The title of an instance of notification data may include contactinformation, such the name of the sender and/or a unique identifier ofthe sender. Affinity module 210 may, for instance, compare the title ofa first instance of notification data that includes the name “JerrySmith” to the title of a second instances of notification data includesthe name “Jerry P. Smith”. Using techniques described in FIGS. 1 and 2,affinity module 210 may generate a Jaccard coefficient based oncomparing “Jerry Smith” of the first instance of notification data toone or more instances or records of contact information in contactinformation data store 223. Affinity module 210 may determine that theJaccard coefficient based on comparing “Jerry Smith” of the firstinstance of notification data to one or more instances or records ofcontact information in contact information data store 223 satisfies athreshold. Accordingly, affinity module 210 may determine that the firstinstance of notification data that includes “Jerry Smith” is associatedwith the contact “Jerry P. Smith” in information data store 223.

Affinity module 210 may store a data structure or “cluster” thatincludes identifying information and/or references to “Jerry P. Smith”in information data store 223 and the first instance of notificationdata for “Jerry Smith”. The data structure for the cluster may be anarray, map, list, or any other suitable data structure. In someinstances the data structure for the cluster may include a uniqueidentifier for a contact that corresponds to the cluser. In this way, asaffinity module 210 identifies additional instances of notification datathat are associated with the contact “Jerry P. Smith” in informationdata store 223, affinity module 210 may include identifying informationand/or references to the additional instances of notification data. Forinstance, affinity module 210 may determine that the Jaccard coefficientbased on comparing “Jerry P. Smith” of the second instance ofnotification data to one or more instances or records of contactinformation in contact information data store 223 satisfies a threshold.Accordingly, affinity module 210 may determine that the second instanceof notification data that includes “Jerry P. Smith” is also associatedwith the contact “Jerry P. Smith” in information data store 223.Affinity module 210 may store, in the cluster for contact “Jerry P.Smith”, identifying information and/or a reference to the secondinstance of notification data for “Jerry P. Smith”.

Affinity module 210 provide notification module 208 with access to thecluster for contact “Jerry P. Smith”, which notification module 208 usesto generate a bundle notification graphical element that corresponds toeach instance of notification data referenced by the cluster, where thecluster corresponds to a particular contact in contact information datastore 23. In this way, notification module 208 may generate a bundlenotification graphical element that corresponds to a group ofnotifications from a common sender or contact. Notification module 208may send data to UI module 206 that causes display component 213 tooutput the bundle notification graphical element for display.

In some examples, and as described in FIG. 1, notification module 208may extract the content from an instance of notification data and storethe content in notification content data store 217. If notificationmodule 208 later receives a subsequent instance of notification data,affinity module 210 may compare content from the subsequent instance ofnotification data with the content stored in notification content datastore 217. In some examples, affinity module 210 may compare contentfrom the subsequent instance of notification data with content stored innotification content data store 217, even if the content stored innotification content data store 217 was associated with a notificationgraphical element that the user previously dismissed. In doing so,affinity module 210 may avoid showing a notification graphical elementfor the subsequent notification data if the subsequent notification datarelates to other notification data for a notification graphical elementthat was previously dismissed. For instance, affinity module 210 maystore a time window value that represents a time duration. Examples of atime duration may be 12 hours, 24 hours, 7 days, or any other durationof time. The time window value may be an integer or non-integer value,and may be set by a user or hard-coded. When affinity module 210receives subsequent notification data, affinity module 210 may comparethe content of the subsequent notification data to content of contactinformation data store 223 that was generated and/or stored within thetime window value. Although described with respect to a time duration,similar techniques may be applied by affinity module 210 to compare thecontent of the subsequent notification data to content of n-most recentnumber of instances of notification data.

Affinity module 210, upon receiving the subsequent instance ofnotification data, compares the content of the subsequent notificationdata to content of contact information data store 223 that was generatedand/or stored within the time window value. If affinity module 210determines that an affinity score based on the comparison satisfies athreshold and the content from data store 223 was included in anotification graphical element that was previously dismissed by theuser, then affinity module 210 may refrain from outputting anotification graphical element for the subsequent notification data.

In some examples, affinity module 210 may implement one or more machinelearning techniques to generate an affinity score. Such techniques mayuse a neural network or Support Vector Machine classifier that providesan affinity score indicating a confidence level that content from two ormore instances of notification data are related. Affinity module 210 mayinitially train a model based on a training set of notification data,such that when content from two or more instances of notification dataare inputted into the model, affinity module 210 may determine anaffinity score.

In some examples, affinity module 210 may generate an affinity scorethat indicates whether content from a first instance of notificationdata has a relationship to at least a portion of content from a secondinstance of notification data based on a common topic. For instanceaffinity module 210 may access a knowledge base that is stored on thecomputing device 202 and/or one or more remote computing devices. Theknowledge base may include a collection of words and relationshipsbetween the words. For instance, the knowledge base may be implementedas a graph where the nodes represent words and edges between the nodesrepresent relationships between the words. In some examples, an edge mayhave a corresponding weight that indicates a strength of a relationshipbetween two words represented by two nodes. For instance, the words“soccer” and “world cup” may be represented by two nodes with an edgebetween the two nodes that indicates “soccer” is related to “world cup”.

In some examples, affinity module 210 may, upon receiving an instance ofnotification data, extract the content and query the knowledge base toretrieve a set of words that are related to the content. For instance,affinity module 210 may submit a query to the knowledge base thatincludes content that includes “world cup” and the knowledge base mayreturn the word “soccer” that represents a topic. Affinity module 210may associate the word “soccer” with the first instance of notificationdata, such as by storing “soccer” as metadata for the first instance ofnotification data. The topic word “soccer” may represent a topic for thecontent of the first instance of notification data. Affinity module 210may perform the same technique with respect to other instances ofnotification data, such that one or more instances of notification dataare associated with one or more topics. Affinity module 210 may generatean affinity score between two or more instances of notification data bygenerating a Jaccard coefficient based on topic words included inmetadata for each instance of notification data. If, for example,instances of notification data share the same topic, the correspondingJaccard coefficient generated as the affinity score may satisfy athreshold. If the affinity score satisfies a threshold, affinity module210 may determine that the two instances of notification data arerelated. Notification module 208 may generate a bundle notificationgraphical element for the topic that represents the two instances ofnotification data that are each related based on the topic. As such,notifications relating to the topic of “soccer” will be grouped togetherand represented as a single, bundle notification graphical element.

In some examples, notification module 208 may receive indications ofuser input that allow for notifications to be customized or silencedbased on contact or based on application type. For instance, a user mayprovide a user input that causes notification module 208 to refrain frombundling notifications for a particular contact or application withother notifications. In some examples, a user may provide a user inputthat causes notification module 208 to refrain from outputtingnotifications for a particular contact or application altogether.

In some examples, notification module 208 may determine a priority orseverity of notification data. For instance, the notification data mayinclude metadata that indicates a priority or severity. If the severityor priority satisfies a threshold, notification module 208 may output asingular notification graphical element for the notification data, evenif the affinity score generated based on the notification satisfies athreshold to bundle the notification data. In some examples,notification module 208 may cause computing device 202 to emit adifferent type, frequency, and/or intensity of feedback (e.g., audio,haptic, etc.) for a bundle notification graphical element than asingular notification graphical element.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing device thatoutputs graphical content for display at a remote device, in accordancewith one or more techniques of the present disclosure. Graphicalcontent, generally, may include any visual information that may beoutput for display, such as text, images, a group of moving images, toname only a few examples. The example shown in FIG. 3 includes acomputing device 300, a presence-sensitive display 364, communicationunit 344, projector 380, projector screen 382, mobile device 386, andvisual display component 390. In some examples, presence-sensitivedisplay 364 may be a presence-sensitive display as described in FIGS.1-2. Although shown for purposes of example in FIGS. 1 and 2 as astand-alone computing device 100, a computing device such as computingdevice 300 may, generally, be any component or system that includes aprocessor or other suitable computing environment for executing softwareinstructions and, for example, need not include a presence-sensitivedisplay.

As shown in the example of FIG. 3, computing device 300 may be aprocessor that includes functionality as described with respect toprocessors 240 in FIG. 2. In such examples, computing device 300 may beoperatively coupled to presence-sensitive display 364 by a communicationchannel 362A, which may be a system bus or other suitable connection.Computing device 300 may also be operatively coupled to communicationunit 344, further described below, by a communication channel 362B,which may also be a system bus or other suitable connection. Althoughshown separately as an example in FIG. 3, computing device 300 may beoperatively coupled to presence-sensitive display 364 and communicationunit 344 by any number of one or more communication channels.

In other examples, such as illustrated previously by computing device100 in FIGS. 1-2, a computing device may refer to a portable or mobiledevice such as mobile phones (including smart phones), laptop computers,etc. In some examples, a computing device may be a desktop computer,tablet computer, smart television platform, camera, personal digitalassistant (PDA), server, or mainframes.

Presence-sensitive display 364 may include display component 370 andpresence-sensitive input component 372. Display component 370 may, forexample, receive data from computing device 300 and display thegraphical content. In some examples, presence-sensitive input component372 may determine one or more user inputs (e.g., continuous gestures,multi-touch gestures, single-touch gestures) at presence-sensitivedisplay 364 using capacitive, inductive, and/or optical recognitiontechniques and send indications of such user input to computing device300 using communication channel 362A. In some examples,presence-sensitive input component 372 may be physically positioned ontop of display component 370 such that, when a user positions an inputunit over a graphical element displayed by display component 370, thelocation at which presence-sensitive input component 372 corresponds tothe location of display component 370 at which the graphical element isdisplayed.

As shown in FIG. 3, computing device 300 may also include and/or beoperatively coupled with communication unit 344. Communication unit 344may include functionality of communication unit 244 as described in FIG.2. Examples of communication unit 344 may include a network interfacecard, an Ethernet card, an optical transceiver, a radio frequencytransceiver, or any other type of device that can send and receiveinformation. Other examples of such communication units may includeBluetooth, 3G, and WiFi radios, Universal Serial Bus (USB) interfaces,etc. Computing device 300 may also include and/or be operatively coupledwith one or more other devices (e.g., input devices, output components,memory, storage devices) that are not shown in FIG. 3 for purposes ofbrevity and illustration.

FIG. 3 also illustrates a projector 380 and projector screen 382. Othersuch examples of projection devices may include electronic whiteboards,holographic display components, and any other suitable devices fordisplaying graphical content. Projector 380 and projector screen 382 mayinclude one or more communication units that enable the respectivedevices to communicate with computing device 300. In some examples, theone or more communication units may enable communication betweenprojector 380 and projector screen 382. Projector 380 may receive datafrom computing device 300 that includes graphical content. Projector380, in response to receiving the data, may project the graphicalcontent onto projector screen 382. In some examples, projector 380 maydetermine one or more user inputs (e.g., continuous gestures,multi-touch gestures, single-touch gestures) at projector screen usingoptical recognition or other suitable techniques and send indications ofsuch user input using one or more communication units to computingdevice 300. In such examples, projector screen 382 may be unnecessary,and projector 380 may project graphical content on any suitable mediumand detect one or more user inputs using optical recognition or othersuch suitable techniques.

Projector screen 382, in some examples, may include a presence-sensitivedisplay 384. Presence-sensitive display 384 may include a subset offunctionality or all of the functionality of presence-sensitive display104 and/or 364 as described in this disclosure. In some examples,presence-sensitive display 384 may include additional functionality.Projector screen 382 (e.g., an electronic whiteboard), may receive datafrom computing device 300 and display the graphical content. In someexamples, presence-sensitive display 384 may determine one or more userinputs (e.g., continuous gestures, multi-touch gestures, single-touchgestures) at projector screen 382 using capacitive, inductive, and/oroptical recognition techniques and send indications of such user inputusing one or more communication units to computing device 300.

Although techniques of the disclosure have been described with respectto n-grams, the techniques could also be applied to otherimplementations. For instance, techniques of the disclosure may be usedwhen word prediction is performed using language models implemented withneural networks, such as regular neural networks, recurrent neuralnetworks, Long-Short Term Memories (LSTMs), or any other types of onlinelearning. Another example may include retaining raw word/phrase countsinstead of decomposing these values into n-grams. In such examples, theraw word/phrase counts may be used with k-nearest-neighbor search tofind matches between words and user inputs.

FIG. 3 also illustrates mobile device 386 and visual display component390. Mobile device 386 and visual display component 390 may each includecomputing and connectivity capabilities. Examples of mobile device 386may include e-reader devices, convertible notebook devices, hybrid slatedevices, etc. Examples of visual display component 390 may include othersemi-stationary devices such as televisions, computer monitors, etc. Asshown in FIG. 3, mobile device 386 may include a presence-sensitivedisplay 388. Visual display component 390 may include apresence-sensitive display 392. Presence-sensitive displays 388, 392 mayinclude a subset of functionality or all of the functionality ofpresence-sensitive display 104 and/or 364 as described in thisdisclosure. In some examples, presence-sensitive displays 388, 392 mayinclude additional functionality. In any case, presence-sensitivedisplay 392, for example, may receive data from computing device 300 anddisplay the graphical content. In some examples, presence-sensitivedisplay 392 may determine one or more user inputs (e.g., continuousgestures, multi-touch gestures, single-touch gestures) at projectorscreen using capacitive, inductive, and/or optical recognitiontechniques and send indications of such user input using one or morecommunication units to computing device 300.

As described above, in some examples, computing device 300 may outputgraphical content for display at presence-sensitive display 364 that iscoupled to computing device 300 by a system bus or other suitablecommunication channel. Computing device 300 may also output graphicalcontent for display at one or more remote devices, such as projector380, projector screen 382, mobile device 386, and visual displaycomponent 390. For instance, computing device 300 may execute one ormore instructions to generate and/or modify graphical content inaccordance with techniques of the present disclosure. Computing device300 may output the data that includes the graphical content to acommunication unit of computing device 300, such as communication unit344. Communication unit 344 may send the data to one or more of theremote devices, such as projector 380, projector screen 382, mobiledevice 386, and/or visual display component 390. In this way, computingdevice 300 may output the graphical content for display at one or moreof the remote devices. In some examples, one or more of the remotedevices may output the graphical content at a presence-sensitive displaythat is included in and/or operatively coupled to the respective remotedevices.

In some examples, computing device 300 may not output graphical contentat presence-sensitive display 364 that is operatively coupled tocomputing device 300. In other examples, computing device 300 may outputgraphical content for display at both a presence-sensitive display 364that is coupled to computing device 300 by communication channel 362A,and at one or more remote devices. In such examples, the graphicalcontent may be displayed substantially contemporaneously at eachrespective device. For instance, some delay may be introduced by thecommunication latency to send the data that includes the graphicalcontent to the remote device. In some examples, graphical contentgenerated by computing device 300 and output for display atpresence-sensitive display 364 may be different than graphical contentdisplay output for display at one or more remote devices.

Computing device 300 may send and receive data using any suitablecommunication techniques. For example, computing device 300 may beoperatively coupled to external network 374 using network link 373A.Each of the remote devices illustrated in FIG. 3 may be operativelycoupled to network external network 374 by one of respective networklinks 373B, 373C, or 373D. External network 374 may include networkhubs, network switches, network routers, etc., that are operativelyinter-coupled thereby providing for the exchange of information betweencomputing device 300 and the remote devices illustrated in FIG. 3. Insome examples, network links 373A-373D may be Ethernet, ATM or othernetwork connections. Such connections may be wireless and/or wiredconnections.

In some examples, computing device 300 may be operatively coupled to oneor more of the remote devices included in FIG. 3 using direct devicecommunication 378. Direct device communication 378 may includecommunications through which computing device 300 sends and receivesdata directly with a remote device, using wired or wirelesscommunication. That is, in some examples of direct device communication378, data sent by computing device 300 may not be forwarded by one ormore additional devices before being received at the remote device, andvice-versa. Examples of direct device communication 378 may includeBluetooth, Near-Field Communication, Universal Serial Bus, WiFi,infrared, etc. One or more of the remote devices illustrated in FIG. 3may be operatively coupled with computing device 300 by communicationlinks 376A-376D. In some examples, communication links 376A-376D may beconnections using Bluetooth, Near-Field Communication, Universal SerialBus, infrared, etc. Such connections may be wireless and/or wiredconnections.

In accordance with techniques of the disclosure, computing device 100may receive, at a notification component that manages notifications atcomputing device 100, first notification data from a first applicationof computing device 100 and second notification data from a secondapplication of computing device 100. Computing device 100 may generate,based at least in part on comparing the first notification data to thesecond notification data, an affinity score that indicates whethercontent from the first notification data has a relationship to at leasta portion of content from the second notification data. Responsive todetermining that the affinity score satisfies a threshold, computingdevice 100 may generate a bundle notification graphical element thatincludes at least a portion of the content from the first notificationdata, the bundle notification graphical element further beingaccompanied by a graphical indicator that indicates the content from thefirst notification data is related to at least the portion of thecontent from the second notification data. Computing device 100 may senddata, via communication unit 344 and external network 374, that causespresence-sensitive display 392 to output, for display, a set ofnotifications comprising the bundle notification graphical elementaccompanied by the graphical indicator, and the set of notificationscomprising at least one other singular notification graphical elementthat represents a third, single instance of notification data.

FIG. 4 illustrates an expansion of a bundle notification graphicalelement 420 into multiple singular bundle notification graphicalelements, in accordance with techniques of this disclosure. FIG. 4illustrates a graphical user interface 416 that may be output fordisplay by a presence-sensitive display, such as presence-sensitivedisplay 104. Graphical user interface 416 may be an example of graphicaluser interface 116 as described in FIG. 1. For instance, graphical userinterface 416 may include bundle notification graphical element 420 andsingular notification graphical element 422.

In the example of FIG. 4, a user may wish to expand bundle notificationgraphical element 420, so as to view a set of singular notificationgraphical elements 426 and 428 that correspond, respectively, todistinct notification data generated by separate applications and thatare collectively represented as bundle notification graphical element420 because a relationship exists between the distinct notificationdata. To expand bundle notification graphical element 420, a user mayprovide a user input at presence-sensitive display 104. In someexamples, the user input may be a single-touch or multi-touch userinput. Examples of single- or multi-touch user inputs may include tap,multi-tap, long-press, pinch, drag, rotate and the like. As shown inFIG. 4, a user of computing device 102 may provide a vertical drag-downsingle-touch gesture 425 to expand bundle notification graphical element420 into multiple, singular notification graphical elements 426 and 428.

In some examples, gesture 425 must originate at a location within theboundary of bundle notification graphical element 420 to initiate theexpansion, as shown in FIG. 4. Gesture 422 may originate at a locationwithin the boundary of bundle notification graphical element 420 withthe user moving her finger into proximity with presence-sensitivedisplay 104, such that the finger is detectable by presence-sensitivedisplay 104. The user may maintain her finger within the detectabilityof presence-sensitive display 104 and move her finger in a downwardvertical direction as indicated by the arrow-head of gesture 425. Insuch examples, UI module 106 may send touch event data to notificationmodule 108 that indicates vertical drag-down single-touch gesture 425.Notification module 108 may determine that vertical drag-downsingle-touch gesture 425 originates at a location within a boundary ofbundle notification graphical element 420.

Based on determining that gesture 425 was initiated at a location ofpresence-sensitive display 104 that includes bundle notificationgraphical element 420, notification module 108 may determine thedifferent instances of notification data associated with bundlenotification graphical element 420. For instance, notification module108 may store, for each bundle notification graphical element, a set ofpointers or references that identify the respective instances or contentof notification data that are represented by the respective bundlenotification graphical element. In this way, if notification module 108receives an indication of user input (e.g., gesture 425) to expandbundle notification graphical element 420, notification module 108 mayselect content from the respective instances of notification data thatare represented by respective bundle notification graphical element 420.Upon selecting the respective content, notification module 108 maygenerate separate, singular notification graphical elements 426 and 428,which include the respective content from each respective instance ofnotification data that was represented by bundle notification graphicalelement 420.

In the example of FIG. 4, notification module 108, in response toreceiving gesture 425 and generating singular notification graphicalelements 426 and 428, may send data representing singular notificationgraphical elements 426 and 428 to UI module 106, which causespresence-sensitive display 104 to output graphical user interface 418for display with singular notification graphical elements 426, 428, and422. As illustrated in FIG. 4, the user may provide additional userinputs to interact with singular notification graphical elements 426,428, and 422.

FIG. 4 also illustrates bundle notification graphical element 420further being accompanied by a graphical indicator 424 that indicatesthe content from a first instance of notification data is related to atleast the portion of content from a second instance of notificationdata. In the example of FIG. 4, graphical indicator 424 is similar inshape and size to bundle notification graphical element 420 butpositioned behind bundle notification graphical element 420 in z-orderwithin graphical user interface 416, such that bundle notificationgraphical element 420 and graphical indicator 424 appear to be cascaded.As such graphical indicator 424 accompanies bundle notificationgraphical element 420 by being positioned behind bundle notificationgraphical element 420 in z-ordering and offset from bundle notificationgraphical element 420 in the x-dimension and y-dimension by respectiveoffset distances. The offset distances may be hard-coded oruser-defined. In some examples, notification module 108 generates bundlenotification graphical element 420 and graphical indicator 424 as asingle image that is output for display by presence-sensitive display104.

FIG. 5 illustrates a selection of a bundle notification graphicalelement and launch of a canonical application for notification datarepresented by the bundle notification graphical element, in accordancewith techniques of this disclosure. FIG. 5 illustrates a graphical userinterface 516 that may be output for display by a presence-sensitivedisplay, such as presence-sensitive display 104. Graphical userinterface 516 may be an example of graphical user interface 116 asdescribed in FIG. 1. For instance, graphical user interface 516 mayinclude bundle notification graphical element 520 and singularnotification graphical element 522. Graphical user interface 516 mayalso include graphical indicator 524.

In some examples, a user may wish to select bundle notificationgraphical element 520 and further interact with an application thatcorresponds to the content displayed in bundle notification graphicalelement 520. As shown in FIG. 5, bundle notification graphical element520 may represent a first instance of notification data generated by atravel application and a second instance of notification data generatedby an email client, where a relationship exists between the content ofthe first and second instances of notification data.

Notification module 108, when generating bundle notification graphicalelement 520 may associate one of the travel application or the emailclient as the canonical application for bundle notification graphicalelement 520. UI module 106, upon detecting a user input at a location ofbundle notification graphical element 520 to select element 520, maylaunch, execute, and/or otherwise display the canonical applicationassociated with bundle notification graphical element 520. As shown inFIG. 5, content from the notification data generated by the canonicalapplication is output for display as content of bundle notificationgraphical element 520, while content from notification data generated byother non-canonical applications may not be output for display. Forinstance, in FIG. 4, the canonical application is the travelapplication. Bundle notification graphical element 520 includes image551 that is provided by notification data generated by the travelapplication, along with a title and body.

In some examples, to select a canonical application, notification module108 may identify each application that generated notification datarepresented by bundle notification graphical element 520. For instance,notification module 108 may identify each of the travel application andthe email client that generated respective instances of notificationhaving related content. Notification module 108 may maintain, for eachrespective application that generates notifications, a historical countof the number of notifications generated by the respective application.For instance, notification module 108 may maintain or otherwise store,for each application, an application identifier and historical count ofthe number of notifications generated by the application. Each time theapplication generates notification data, notification module 108 maydetermine the application identifier for the application and incrementthe corresponding historical count. In some examples, notificationmodule 108 may reset the historical count in response to an asynchronousevent or on a periodic basis (e.g., per day, per week, or any othersuitable interval).

In the example of FIG. 5, notification module 108, upon receivingrespective instances of notification data from each of the travelapplication and the email client and determining that a relationshipexists between content of the two instances of notification data, maydetermine the respective historical count for each of the travelapplication and the email application. Notification module 108 mayselect an application from the set of applications as the canonicalapplication that has the fewest number of generated instances ofnotification data. That is, the canonical application may be theapplication from the set of applications that has the smallesthistorical count of the historical counts associated with theapplications in the set of applications. If more than one applicationhas the smallest historical count, notification module 108 may randomlyselect one of the applications as the canonical application, or may useone or more other criteria as described in this disclosure to select thecanonical application for bundle notification graphical element 520.

In the example of FIG. 5, the travel application may have acorresponding historical count that is smaller than the historical countfor the email application. As such, notification module 108 selects thetravel application as the canonical application and associates thetravel application with bundle notification graphical element 520 as thecanonical application. In response to receiving a user input at location547 of graphical user interface 516, UI module 6 may receive one or moretouch events corresponding to the user input. UI module 106, upondetecting a user input at location 547 to select element 520, maylaunch, execute, and/or otherwise display a user interface 549 for thecanonical application (e.g., the travel application) within graphicaluser interface 518.

Notification module 108 may determine the canonical applicationaccording to one or more other techniques, which may be used together orseparately, and in combination or apart from the techniques describedabove. For instance, computing device 202 may store metadata forapplications. The metadata for an application may indicate that theapplication is the canonical application for notification data withparticular content. The metadata may be user-defined or hard-coded. Insome examples, notification module may maintain or access data thatindicates the frequency of use of applications. Notification module 108may determine that the canonical application for a set of applicationsthat generated related notification data is the most frequently used ormost recently used application. In some examples, a user may provide auser input that sets a particular application as the canonicalapplication. In some examples, notification module 108 may use machinelearning techniques to determine the canonical application. Forinstance, if a user expands a bundle notification graphical element andselects singular notification graphical element, notification module 108may use the selection as positive reinforcement to increase a score orlikelihood that the application for the selected singular notificationgraphical element is the canonical application. Notification module 108may use the score or likelihood value to determine whether theapplication for the selected singular notification graphical element isthe canonical application.

In some examples, techniques of the disclosure may allow the user todismiss the entire bundle notification graphical element or iterativelydismiss singular notification graphical element. For instance, in FIG.5, the user may provide a bundle dismissal user input, such as ahorizontal left swipe gesture that causes notification module 108 todismiss bundle notification graphical element 520 entirely fromgraphical user interface 516. Alternatively, the user may provide asingular dismissal user input, such as a horizontal right swipe gesture(opposite to the bundle dismissal user input) that causes notificationmodule 108 to dismiss only the currently displayed notificationgraphical element for bundle notification graphical element 520. Forinstance, in response to receiving a singular dismissal user input,notification module 108 may dismiss the “top level” or viewablenotification graphical element of bundle notification graphical element520 for the canonical application and display a next notificationgraphical element that corresponds to another instance of notificationdata that is associated with bundle notification graphical element 520.If the user provides another singular dismissal user input, notificationmodule 108 may dismiss this next notification graphical element anddisplay a subsequent notification graphical element, such that the usercan iterate through each notification graphical element for notificationdata that corresponds to bundle notification graphical element 520.Although the bundle and singular dismissal user inputs are described ashorizontal swipe gestures, any suitable form of user input may be used,such as but not include, single- and/or multi-touch gestures, motiongestures that move the computing device itself, voice input and thelike.

In some examples, selecting an unexpanded bundle notification graphicalelement will trigger an event or “intent” associated with the canonicalnotification within a cluster or other data structure that includesstate for the bundle notification graphical element. As described above,the canonical notification will be selected based upon specificity ofthe associated event or intent. For example, notification data thatopens a specific application will take precedence over notification datathat opens an email with related content.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating example operations of a computingdevice configured to identify relationships between different instancesof notification data, and output a bundle notification graphical elementfor a bundle of related notifications, in accordance with techniques ofthis disclosure. For purposes of illustration only, the exampleoperations are described below within the context of computing device102 of FIG. 1.

Computing device 102 may generate first notification data for a firstapplication and second notification data for a second application (602).For instance, a travel application may generate the first notificationdata and an email client may generate the second notification data.Computing device 102 may compare content of the first notification tocontent of the second notification to generate an affinity score (604).The affinity score, as described in this disclosure, may indicatewhether content from the first notification data has a relationship toas least a portion of content from the second notification data. Forinstance, computing device 102 may generate a first Jaccard coefficientbased on content in the bodies of the first and second notification dataand may generate a second Jaccard coefficient based on contents in thetitles of the first and second notification data. Computing device 102may apply a first weight to the first Jaccard coefficient and a secondweight to the second Jaccard coefficient, and then sum the weightedJaccard coefficients to generate an affinity score.

Computing device 102 may determine whether the affinity score satisfiesa threshold (606). If the affinity score does not satisfy a threshold(e.g., less than the threshold) (608), then computing device 102 maygenerate and output a set of notification for display, wherein the setincludes a first singular notification graphical element for the firstnotification data and a second singular notification graphical elementfor the second notification data (616). If, however, the affinity scoresatisfies the threshold (e.g., is greater than or equal to thethreshold) (610), computing device 102 may generate a bundlenotification graphical element that includes content from the firstnotification data (612). As described in this disclosure computingdevice 102 may generate a graphical indicator that accompanies thebundle notification graphical element. The graphical indicator mayindicate a relationship between content from the first and secondnotification data. Computing device 102 may output for display, a set ofnotifications that includes the bundle notification graphical elementaccompanied by the graphical indicator (614).

EXAMPLE 1

A method comprising: receiving, at a notification component that managesnotifications at a computing device, first notification data from afirst application of the computing device and second notification datafrom a second application of the computing device; generating, based atleast in part on comparing the first notification data to the secondnotification data, an affinity score that indicates whether content fromthe first notification data has a relationship to at least a portion ofcontent from the second notification data; responsive to determiningthat the affinity score satisfies a threshold, generating a bundlenotification graphical element that includes at least a portion of thecontent from the first notification data, the bundle notificationgraphical element further being accompanied by a graphical indicatorthat indicates the content from the first notification data is relatedto at least the portion of the content from the second notificationdata; and outputting, by the computing device and for display, a set ofnotification graphical elements comprising the bundle notificationgraphical element accompanied by the graphical indicator, and the set ofnotification graphical elements comprising at least one other singularnotification graphical element that represents a third, single instanceof notification data.

EXAMPLE 2

The method of Example 1, further comprising: extracting the content fromthe first notification data and the content from the from the secondnotification data; generating a first set of n-grams based on thecontent from the first notification data and generating a second set ofn-grams based on the content from the second notification data; andwherein generating the affinity score comprises generating the affinityscore based at least in part on the first set of n-grams and the secondset of n-grams.

EXAMPLE 3

The method of Example 1, wherein outputting the set of notificationsfurther comprises outputting each notification graphical element of theset of notification graphical elements in a uniform alignment along atleast one of a vertical or horizontal axis of a graphical user interfacethat is output for display, wherein each of the bundle notificationgraphical element and the singular notification graphical element aresubstantially the same size.

EXAMPLE 4

The method of Example 1, further comprising: generating a first,weighted Jaccard coefficient based at least in part on title contentfrom the first notification data, title content from the secondnotification data, and a title content weight; generating a second,weighted Jaccard coefficient based at least in part on body content fromthe first notification data, body content from the second notificationdata, and a body content weight; and wherein generating the affinityscore comprises generating the affinity score based at least in part onthe first, weighted Jaccard coefficient and the second, weighted Jaccardcoefficient.

EXAMPLE 5

The method of Example 1, wherein the notification component is executingwith elevated execution privileges of an operating system.

EXAMPLE 6

The method of Example 1, further comprising: receiving an indication ofuser input that selects the bundle notification graphical element;determining a canonical application associated with the bundlenotification graphical element; and outputting for display the canonicalapplication.

EXAMPLE 7

The method of Example 6, wherein the canonical application is anapplication that has generated a fewest number of instances ofnotification data among a set of applications, wherein each of the setof applications has generated content represented by the bundlenotification graphical element.

EXAMPLE 8

The method of Example 1, wherein the first notification data has therelationship to at least the portion of content from the secondnotification data based at least in part on the first notification dataoriginating from a same sender as the second notification data.

EXAMPLE 9

The method of Example 1, further comprising: responsive to querying aknowledge base, based at least in part on the content of the firstnotification data, receiving a first set of topics; responsive toquerying the knowledge base, based at least in part on the content ofthe second notification data, receiving a second set of topics; whereingenerating the affinity score comprises generating the affinity scorebased at least in part on the first set of topics and the second set oftopics.

EXAMPLE 10

The method of Example 1, wherein the affinity score is a first affinitystore, the method further comprising:receiving, at the notificationcomponent, third notification data; generating, based at least in parton comparing the first notification data to the third notification data,a second affinity score that indicates whether content from the firstnotification data has a relationship to at least a portion of contentfrom the third notification data; responsive to determining that theaffinity score satisfies the threshold and the first notification datawas received by the notification component within a time window,refraining from outputting a notification graphical element thatrepresents the third notification data.

EXAMPLE 11

The method of Example 1, wherein the bundle notification graphicalelement and the graphical indicator collectively represent at least thefirst notification data and the second notification data.

EXAMPLE 12

A computing device comprising: one or more computer processors; and amemory comprising instructions that when executed by the one or morecomputer processors cause the one or more computer processors to:receive, at a notification component that manages notifications at thecomputing device, first notification data from a first application ofthe computing device and second notification data from a secondapplication of the computing device; generate, based at least in part oncomparing the first notification data to the second notification data,an affinity score that indicates whether content from the firstnotification data has a relationship to at least a portion of contentfrom the second notification data; responsive to determining that theaffinity score satisfies a threshold, generate a bundle notificationgraphical element that includes at least a portion of the content fromthe first notification data, the bundle notification graphical elementfurther being accompanied by a graphical indicator that indicates thecontent from the first notification data is related to at least theportion of the content from the second notification data; and output,for display, a set of notification graphical elements comprising thebundle notification graphical element accompanied by the graphicalindicator, and the set of notification graphical elements comprising atleast one other singular notification graphical element that representsa third, single instance of notification data.

EXAMPLE 13

The computing device of Example 12, wherein the memory comprisesinstructions that when executed by the one or more computer processorscause the one or more computer processors to perform any of the methodof Examples 2-11.

EXAMPLE 14

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium encoded withinstructions that, when executed, cause at least one processor of acomputing device to: receive, at a notification component that managesnotifications at the computing device, first notification data from afirst application of the computing device and second notification datafrom a second application of the computing device; generate, based atleast in part on comparing the first notification data to the secondnotification data, an affinity score that indicates whether content fromthe first notification data has a relationship to at least a portion ofcontent from the second notification data; responsive to determiningthat the affinity score satisfies a threshold, generate a bundlenotification graphical element that includes at least a portion of thecontent from the first notification data, the bundle notificationgraphical element further being accompanied by a graphical indicatorthat indicates the content from the first notification data is relatedto at least the portion of the content from the second notificationdata; and output, for display, a set of notification graphical elementscomprising the bundle notification graphical element accompanied by thegraphical indicator, and the set of notification graphical elementscomprising at least one other singular notification graphical elementthat represents a third, single instance of notification data.

EXAMPLE 15

The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of Example 14encoded with instructions that, when executed, cause at least oneprocessor of a computing device to perform any of the method of Examples2-11.

EXAMPLE 16

An apparatus comprising: means for receiving first notification datafrom a first application of the apparatus and second notification datafrom a second application of the apparatus; means for generating, basedat least in part on comparing the first notification data to the secondnotification data, an affinity score that indicates whether content fromthe first notification data has a relationship to at least a portion ofcontent from the second notification data; means for, responsive todetermining that the affinity score satisfies a threshold, generating abundle notification graphical element that includes at least a portionof the content from the first notification data, the bundle notificationgraphical element further being accompanied by a graphical indicatorthat indicates the content from the first notification data is relatedto at least the portion of the content from the second notificationdata; and means for outputting, for display, a set of notificationgraphical elements comprising the bundle notification graphical elementaccompanied by the graphical indicator, and the set of notificationgraphical elements comprising at least one other singular notificationgraphical element that represents a third, single instance ofnotification data.

EXAMPLE 17

The apparatus of claim 16 comprising means for performing any of themethod of Examples 2-11.

In one or more examples, the functions described may be implemented inhardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. If implementedin software, the functions may be stored on or transmitted over, as oneor more instructions or code, a computer-readable medium and executed bya hardware-based processing unit. Computer-readable media may includecomputer-readable storage media, which corresponds to a tangible mediumsuch as data storage media, or communication media including any mediumthat facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place toanother, e.g., according to a communication protocol. In this manner,computer-readable media generally may correspond to (1) tangiblecomputer-readable storage media, which is non-transitory or (2) acommunication medium such as a signal or carrier wave. Data storagemedia may be any available media that can be accessed by one or morecomputers or one or more processors to retrieve instructions, codeand/or data structures for implementation of the techniques described inthis disclosure. A computer program product may include acomputer-readable medium.

By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable storagemedia can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical diskstorage, magnetic disk storage, or other magnetic storage devices, flashmemory, or any other medium that can be used to store desired programcode in the form of instructions or data structures and that can beaccessed by a computer. Also, any connection is properly termed acomputer-readable medium. For example, if instructions are transmittedfrom a website, server, or other remote source using a coaxial cable,fiber optic cable, twisted pair, digital subscriber line (DSL), orwireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave, then thecoaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, DSL, or wirelesstechnologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave are included in thedefinition of medium. It should be understood, however, thatcomputer-readable storage media and data storage media do not includeconnections, carrier waves, signals, or other transient media, but areinstead directed to non-transient, tangible storage media. Disk anddisc, as used herein, includes compact disc (CD), laser disc, opticaldisc, digital versatile disc (DVD), floppy disk and Blu-ray disc, wheredisks usually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproduce dataoptically with lasers. Combinations of the above should also be includedwithin the scope of computer-readable media.

Instructions may be executed by one or more processors, such as one ormore digital signal processors (DSPs), general purpose microprocessors,application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmablelogic arrays (FPGAs), or other equivalent integrated or discrete logiccircuitry. Accordingly, the term “processor,” as used herein may referto any of the foregoing structure or any other structure suitable forimplementation of the techniques described herein. In addition, in someaspects, the functionality described herein may be provided withindedicated hardware and/or software modules. Also, the techniques couldbe fully implemented in one or more circuits or logic elements.

The techniques of this disclosure may be implemented in a wide varietyof devices or apparatuses, including a wireless handset, an integratedcircuit (IC) or a set of ICs (e.g., a chip set). Various components,modules, or units are described in this disclosure to emphasizefunctional aspects of devices configured to perform the disclosedtechniques, but do not necessarily require realization by differenthardware units. Rather, as described above, various units may becombined in a hardware unit or provided by a collection ofinteroperative hardware units, including one or more processors asdescribed above, in conjunction with suitable software and/or firmware.

Various aspects of the disclosure have been described. These and otheraspects are within the scope of the following claims.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving, at anotification component that manages notifications at a computing device,first notification data from a first application of the computing deviceand second notification data from a second application of the computingdevice; generating, based at least in part on comparing the firstnotification data to the second notification data, an affinity scorethat indicates whether content from the first notification data has arelationship to at least a portion of content from the secondnotification data; responsive to determining that the affinity scoresatisfies a threshold, generating a bundle notification graphicalelement that includes at least a portion of the content from the firstnotification data, the bundle notification graphical element furtherbeing accompanied by a graphical indicator that indicates the contentfrom the first notification data is related to at least the portion ofthe content from the second notification data; and outputting, by thecomputing device and for display, a set of notification graphicalelements comprising the bundle notification graphical elementaccompanied by the graphical indicator, and the set of notificationgraphical elements comprising at least one other singular notificationgraphical element that represents a third, single instance ofnotification data.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:extracting the content from the first notification data and the contentfrom the second notification data; generating a first set of n-gramsbased on the content from the first notification data and generating asecond set of n-grams based on the content from the second notificationdata; and wherein generating the affinity score comprises generating theaffinity score based at least in part on the first set of n-grams andthe second set of n-grams.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein outputtingthe set of notifications further comprises outputting each notificationgraphical element of the set of notification graphical elements in auniform alignment along at least one of a vertical or horizontal axis ofa graphical user interface that is output for display, wherein each ofthe bundle notification graphical element and the singular notificationgraphical element are substantially the same size.
 4. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: generating a first, weighted Jaccardcoefficient based at least in part on title content from the firstnotification data, title content from the second notification data, anda title content weight; generating a second, weighted Jaccardcoefficient based at least in part on body content from the firstnotification data, body content from the second notification data, and abody content weight; and wherein generating the affinity score comprisesgenerating the affinity score based at least in part on the first,weighted Jaccard coefficient and the second, weighted Jaccardcoefficient.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the notificationcomponent is executing with elevated execution privileges of anoperating system.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:receiving an indication of user input that selects the bundlenotification graphical element; determining a canonical applicationassociated with the bundle notification graphical element; andoutputting for display the canonical application.
 7. The method of claim6, wherein the canonical application is an application that hasgenerated a fewest number of instances of notification data among a setof applications, wherein each of the set of applications has generatedcontent represented by the bundle notification graphical element.
 8. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the first notification data has therelationship to at least the portion of content from the secondnotification data based at least in part on the first notification dataoriginating from a same sender as the second notification data.
 9. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: responsive to querying aknowledge base, based at least in part on the content of the firstnotification data, receiving a first set of topics; responsive toquerying the knowledge base, based at least in part on the content ofthe second notification data, receiving a second set of topics; whereingenerating the affinity score comprises generating the affinity scorebased at least in part on the first set of topics and the second set oftopics.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein the affinity score is a firstaffinity store, the method further comprising: receiving, at thenotification component, third notification data; generating, based atleast in part on comparing the first notification data to the thirdnotification data, a second affinity score that indicates whethercontent from the first notification data has a relationship to at leasta portion of content from the third notification data; responsive todetermining that the second affinity score satisfies the threshold andthe first notification data was received by the notification componentwithin a time window, refraining from outputting a notificationgraphical element that represents the third notification data.
 11. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the bundle notification graphical element andthe graphical indicator collectively represent at least the firstnotification data and the second notification data.
 12. A computingdevice comprising: one or more computer processors; and a memorycomprising instructions that when executed by the one or more computerprocessors cause the one or more computer processors to: receive, at anotification component that manages notifications at the computingdevice, first notification data from a first application of thecomputing device and second notification data from a second applicationof the computing device; generate, based at least in part on comparingthe first notification data to the second notification data, an affinityscore that indicates whether content from the first notification datahas a relationship to at least a portion of content from the secondnotification data; responsive to determining that the affinity scoresatisfies a threshold, generate a bundle notification graphical elementthat includes at least a portion of the content from the firstnotification data, the bundle notification graphical element furtherbeing accompanied by a graphical indicator that indicates the contentfrom the first notification data is related to at least the portion ofthe content from the second notification data; and output, for display,a set of notification graphical elements comprising the bundlenotification graphical element accompanied by the graphical indicator,and the set of notification graphical elements comprising at least oneother singular notification graphical element that represents a third,single instance of notification data.
 13. The computing device of claim12, wherein the instructions when executed by the one or more computerprocessors cause the one or more computer processors to: extract thecontent from the first notification data and the content from the fromthe second notification data; generate a first set of n-grams based onthe content from the first notification data and generate a second setof n-grams based on the content from the second notification data; andwherein the instructions when executed by the one or more computerprocessors cause the one or more computer processors to generate anaffinity score further comprise instructions that when executed by theone or more computer processors cause the one or more computerprocessors to generate the affinity score based at least in part on thefirst set of n-grams and the second set of n-grams.
 14. The computingdevice of claim 12, wherein the instructions when executed by the one ormore computer processors cause the one or more computer processors tooutput the set of notifications further comprise instructions that whenexecuted by the one or more computer processors cause the one or morecomputer processors to output each notification graphical element of theset of notification graphical elements in a uniform alignment along atleast one of a vertical or horizontal axis of a graphical user interfacethat is output for display, wherein each of the bundle notificationgraphical element and the singular notification graphical element aresubstantially the same size.
 15. The computing device of claim 12,wherein the first application and the second application are ofdifferent types.
 16. The computing device of claim 12, wherein thenotification component executes with elevated execution privileges of anoperating system.
 17. The computing device of claim 12, wherein theinstructions when executed by the one or more computer processors causethe one or more computer processors to: receive an indication of userinput that selects the bundle notification graphical element; determinea canonical application associated with the bundle notificationgraphical element; and output for display the canonical application. 18.The computing device of claim 17, wherein the canonical application isan application that has generated a fewest number of instances ofnotification data among a set of applications, wherein each of the setof applications has generated content represented by the bundlenotification graphical element.
 19. The computing device of claim 12,wherein the first notification data has the relationship to at least theportion of content from the second notification data based at least inpart on the first notification data originating from a same sender asthe second notification data.
 20. A non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium encoded with instructions that, when executed, cause atleast one processor of a computing device to: receive, at a notificationcomponent that manages notifications at the computing device, firstnotification data from a first application of the computing device andsecond notification data from a second application of the computingdevice; generate, based at least in part on comparing the firstnotification data to the second notification data, an affinity scorethat indicates whether content from the first notification data has arelationship to at least a portion of content from the secondnotification data; responsive to determining that the affinity scoresatisfies a threshold, generate a bundle notification graphical elementthat includes at least a portion of the content from the firstnotification data, the bundle notification graphical element furtherbeing accompanied by a graphical indicator that indicates the contentfrom the first notification data is related to at least the portion ofthe content from the second notification data; and output, for display,a set of notification graphical elements comprising the bundlenotification graphical element accompanied by the graphical indicator,and the set of notification graphical elements comprising at least oneother singular notification graphical element that represents a third,single instance of notification data.
 21. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 20 encoded with instructionsthat, when executed, cause the at least one processor of the computingdevice to: extract the content from the first notification data and thecontent from the second notification data; generate a first set ofn-grams based on the content from the first notification data andgenerate a second set of n-grams based on the content from the secondnotification data; and wherein the instructions that, when executed,cause the at least one processor of the computing device to generate theaffinity score further comprise instructions that, when executed, causethe at least one processor of the computing device to generate theaffinity score based at least in part on the first set of n-grams andthe second set of n-grams.